Hi Folks

New to the forum, just getting to know a new Lelit Bianca V3, so far a big change from our 1970's vintage Simonelli Beach.
I intend to plumb the Bianca in, the Beach was plumbed in and we like the convenience.
I live in the interior of British Columbia and our water supply is a deep well, the water is quite hard, 500-550 ppm total hardness, no iron, and we run a full house softening system. Tests of the softened water show minimal hardness.
I am waiting on delivery of a BWT cartridge system and a BestProtect cartridge to act as a backup softener and filter for the supply to the Bianca.
I have some concern with the high TDS loading which will be almost all sodium based due to the softener. I am most worried about the steam boiler concentrating the TDS but think I can control it by regular purging of boiler water with the hot water valve.

The Simonelli Beach has operated fine on our water for 12-15 years.

Any comments or advice would be much appreciated.

Jim

That's really hard water. I think your plan is reasonable. That BWT bestprotect will give you some charcoal and particulate filtration and essentially does the same kind of softening as your whole house softener (i.e., sodium ion exchange). If the whole house system is working it will have no softening effect but will kick in if/when the whole house softener isn't doing the job.

Your water will be high in sodium, and probably be high alkalinity, maybe affecting taste. But espresso tolerates far higher alkalinity than brewed coffee so you're probably OK. The usual complaint about too high alkalinity would be that your conventionally brewed coffee tastes dull and flat.

Before considering anything different I think you would want to know more about your chloride ion level and your alkalinity. One way that you might get your water down to lower sodium and typically recommended alkalinity numbers would be to run your softened water through a reverse osmosis system with a precision blending valve. Pricy, and probably not even a good idea if your chloride level is high compared to your alkalinity.

Of course you always have the solution that works the same for anyone anywhere: adding minerals to purified water. On a plumb-in rig this can be done with a coffee cart approach: Espresso Cart - Goodbye Plumbed In

Thanks for the help Pat, I will get a sample sent away for detail on chloride and metals.

The pH of the water is 7.6 and the TDS is 560, TDS is about what I expected given the raw water hardness but I thought pH might be a bit higher. The coffee so far tastes good when I get it right, still dialing in, but flavors are not muted.

I did take a look inside the (copper) boiler of the old Simonelli Beach. At least 12 years of service, never descaled and no sign of scale in the boiler so I guess the Bianca should be ok unless there is significant chloride content?

Well I finally got the results from the softened water test
pH 7.76
Total Alkalinity 306 mg/L
Chloride 84.5 mg/L
Hardness 1.07 mg/L
Iron 0.013 mg/L
Calcium 0.21 mg/L
Magnesium 0.13 mg/L
Sodium 200 mg/L
TDS 520 mg/L

I guess with a salt based softener system that level of chloride is not unexpected but with 7.8 pH and relatively high total alkalinity it should be safe enough for the new machine?
Muting of taste and what could be done about it is another question altogether?

Jim

That chloride, at 85 mg/L, is pretty high. Some of it may come from incomplete flushing of the softening salt* but I suspect that most of it is in the tap water. It's not as high as the ~ 150 mg/L chloride in Cambridge MA, which is where La Marzocco discovered that chloride corrosion was ruining machines. And you have much higher alkalinity than they had there which should help mitigate the chloride corrosion risk. But it is well above manufacturer's typically recommended max chloride numbers: Chloride in Water - Recommended Acceptable Ranges

You can probably live with your water as it is, but if you wanted to be worry free I think you would want to run that softened water through a reverse osmosis system with a remin cartridge before feeding it to your machine. That will drop your alkalinity and your chloride down to low numbers. A typical calcite or similar remineralizer will add a small amount of hardness and alkalinity, giving you soft Seattle-like water.


* During regeneration the softener resin bed is bypassed and loaded with a sodium chloride or potassium chloride brine. Then the system is flushed with fresh water, with the brine going straight down the drain. Much of the sodium or potassium stays in the resin but not the chloride ion, which is flushed with the hardness ions that were in the resin. It makes sense that some chloride might not be fully flushed when the system comes back online, but I've never seen numbers for that. It does put a lot of chloride salts into the water sewer system, which is why some municipalities discourage these softening systems.

Thanks Pat, the chloride level is worrying, but I don't know if the softener had just regenerated or if the backwash time can be increased.
Do you know of a test kit for chloride? The full water analysis was $200 and I am not keen on paying that again.
I don't think I have room under the sink where the BWT cartridge is for a RO system so it would have to be put in the basement which is doable.
I will also look into what our local bottled water supply analysis is like, I could put in a water cart system.

Jim

4-71T wrote:Do you know of a test kit for chloride? The full water analysis was $200 and I am not keen on paying that again.

Hach and Hanna both have easy to use drop titration kits for chloride: The skinny on chloride testing?